Gears Of War Designer Almost Made An Aliens FPS, And Here’s What It Would Have Been

Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski nearly made a new Aliens first-person shooter featuring a new version Ripley and set in a Black Mesa-style facility. You would play as a grown-up version of Rebecca “Newt” Jorden, who was among the only survivors of a Xenomorph infestation during the Aliens timeline.

The developer revealed this on Twitter, saying his studio, Boss Key, was in talks with Aliens rights-owners Fox to make a new Aliens game, but it fell apart after Disney acquired Fox.

“Ripley would be alive and be your ‘Cortana/Anya,'” Bleszinski said, referencing the two support characters from Halo and Gears of War, respectively. “You’d play as grown Newt. On Earth. Weyland-Yutani are weaponizing the aliens in a Black Mesa-style facility, and, of course, all hell breaks loose,” Bleszinski added.

The game was also going to feature a new robot-friend named Casey after Newt’s doll in Aliens. Bleszinski added that he was never personally interested on working on someone else’s IP … unless that IP was Aliens or Transformers. (The code-name for LawBreakers was Bluestreak, which is a reference to the Transformers franchise)

In response to Bleszinski’s tweet about making a new Aliens FPS, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford replied, “Careful” with a winky-face emoji. This could be in reference to any number of things. Gearbox developed the maligned Alien game Aliens: Colonial Marines, but whether or not the studio makes any more Aliens game is unknown.

What is known is that Cold Iron Studios is currently working on a new Aliens FPS, made by some of the people who also developed BioShock, Borderlands, and Star Trek Online.

After Disney bought Fox, it acquired the company’s games label, FoxNext, which was going to publish this new Aliens game. However, Disney sold FoxNext to Scopely. The saga doesn’t end there, however, as Scopely said it plans to sell Cold Iron to another company in the future.

Going back to Bleszinski, he left Epic Games in 2012 (before Fortnite) and later started his own studio, Boss Key. The company would release two titles–LawBreakers and Radical Heights–but they both failed to find and audience and the studio closed down. Bleszinski recently said that part of the reason why LawBreakers failed was because he pushed his own “woke” politics.

Cliff Bleszinski Comments On Aliens Game

How Birds of Brey Connects to the DC Universe Movies

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) delivers the next chapter of the DCEU, which may come as a surprise to those who heard director Cathy Yan say that the movie “exists in a parallel timeline.” Now that we’ve seen the movie, it seems as though Yan was more speaking metaphorically about how that was her mindset going into the film — she wanted it to stand on its own rather than be reliant on other films. But now that we know Birds of Prey is indeed a part of the shared DC movie tapestry, here’s a rundown on how Birds of Prey links to DC’s other movies with a handful of cool Easter eggs and how Harley’s antics impact the Gotham City landscape and the larger DC movie universe.

Note: just for clarification, the DC movie universe aka the DCEU includes Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Justice League, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Shazam!, and now Birds of Prey, whereas Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker film stands by itself unconnected to these other films.

Warning: full spoilers for Birds of Prey ahead!

You can view a visual version of this feature by flipping through the slideshow below or keep scrolling to read it as an article.

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The Joker Is MIA

Birds of Prey picks up with Harley trying to get over being dumped by her ex, the Joker. We see Harley getting tossed out by one of the Joker’s goons, and you’ll notice that the setting isn’t in Gotham City. In Suicide Squad, we saw the Joker operating out of a lavish mansion, but now he appears to be residing a cabin out in a rural area, which implies that the Joker isn’t in Gotham and is likely laying low, probably to avoid getting caught by Batman.

The Joker’s absence in Gotham has a profound effect on Harley and the city at large. Harley essentially broadcasts her breakup with Joker when she destroys Ace Chemicals, the place where she was reborn as Harley Quinn and cemented her perverse bond with her Puddin’. So without the Joker’s protection, it’s open season on Harley Quinn, meaning everyone with a grudge against her — and it turns out that’s an awful lot of people — are emboldened to seek her out and attack her in a bid for revenge, all because they know that the Joker isn’t around to retaliate. Black Mask takes this as an opportunity to finally claim Harley as his own and punish her for the long, long list of things she’s done to anger and otherwise annoy him.

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The Rise of Black Mask

While Black Mask trying to get his gloved hands on Harley is at the forefront of the film, we couldn’t help but notice that there also seems to be a power vacuum in Gotham City thanks to the Joker not being around, and Roman Sionis is trying to take advantage of it. We see Black Mask making moves to expand his criminal operations as he makes offers to fellow crime lords… and has them executed by Mr. Zsas when they don’t play along.

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Of course, the Birds of Prey assemble to stop Black Mask and bring him to a rather, er, explosive end. Members Renee Montoya, Huntress, and Black Canary decide to stay together to keep cleaning up Gotham. Now, in addition to the Justice League and the Shazam Family, the DC movie universe has another superhero team protecting innocents and beating up baddies.

It’s also worth pointing out that during Renee’s emotional talk with Black Canary aka Dinah Laurel Lance, we learned that Canary’s mother was a super-powered hero who protected Gotham City before her untimely demise. In the comics, the character of Black Canary has gone through many retcons over the years, but the movie seems to be implying that Dinah Laurel Lance’s mother is none other than Dinah Drake, who eventually marries detective Larry Lance and has a child that carries on her metahuman gene. At one point Drake was a member of the Justice Society of America, a superhero team that operated a generation before the Justice League, and we know that the JSA will be featured in Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam movie, so it could be possible that we meet Dinah’s mom in that movie.

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Gotham City Sirens?

Of course, when a team of heroes appears, it’s inevitable that a team of villains will form to oppose them. The most obvious choice to fight the Birds of Prey is none other than the Gotham City Sirens. In the comics, they’re a group of female characters from Batman’s rogues gallery — Harley Quinn, Catwoman, and Poison Ivy — who dish out their own twisted brand of justice across Cotham City.

In fact, after Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn proved to be the breakout character from Suicide Squad, Warner Bros. got to work on developing four potential followup movies for her. One of those ideas was Gotham City Sirens, which we last heard had David Ayer tentatively attached to direct, but the film was put on hold when Warners decided to move ahead with Birds of Prey. Birds of Prey got the green light in large part due to Robbie championing it because she wanted to introduce the lesser-known Birds of Prey characters to the masses, knowing that many fans are already familiar with the popular Poison Ivy and Catwoman.

But now that the Birds of Prey have been established on the big screen, it’s possible that a potential sequel could introduce Harley’s other comic book team. We can just imagine the sort of chaos that would unfold if Harley was a member of both teams as they’re fighting each other.

The plant-controlling Poison Ivy is a longtime Batman villain who has a close, sometimes-romantic relationship with Harley Quinn. The jewel thief known as Catwoman, on the other hand, is set to appear in Matt Reeves’ upcoming film The Batman, with Selina Kyle being played by Zoe Kravitz. It’s currently unclear whether The Batman will be connected to the DC movie universe or if it’ll be standalone like Joker (one rumor says The Batman will be set in the past during the ‘90s), but if it does end up connecting, then Kravitz could reprise the role to join the Gotham City Sirens.

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Harley Quinn Will Rejoin the Suicide Squad

That’s a lot of speculation, but here’s what we do know about Harley Quinn’s next cinematic appearance. It’ll be in James Gunn’s upcoming sequel-or-is-it-a-reboot, The Suicide Squad (release date August 6, 2021), which was teased in Birds of Prey. When Harley passes by a wanted poster in the Gotham City police station, she says, “I know that guy!” And lo and behold, it features Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang, who was one of Harley’s teammates on Task Force X.

Given that Birds of Prey ends with Harley hightailing it with her new sidekick Cassandra Cain, that means “Cass” could also make an appearance in the film. Cass was an assassin in the comics before she went on to become Batgirl, so maybe the Squad will be where the movie version picks up those skills.

But this also means some bad news for Harley: for her to be once again enlisted in Task Force X, she has to be incarcerated by Amanda Waller, so she’s probably going to get caught again between the events of Birds of Prey and The Suicide Squad. Sorry, Harley!

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Birds of Prey may be intimately focused on Harley’s quest for emancipation, but it also shook up the status quo of the DCEU quite a bit by eliminating a major crime lord, creating a new superhero team, and leaving the door open for a new DC property to take shape on the big screen.

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Joshua is Senior Features Editor at IGN. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.

Why Netflix Couldn’t Conquer the Oscars (Despite Spending a Lot of Money)

The South Korean film Parasite made Oscar history in several ways on Sunday, winning four of the six Academy Award categories in which it was nominated. Parasite was the underdog movie of this year’s Oscars race, and its groundbreaking showing is all the more impressive when you look at the eight other Best Picture nominees, all of them mainstream films with bigger studios campaigning for them than Parasite, which was released domestically by indie distributor NEON.

Netflix reportedly spent “at least $70 million” to promote their eight films in the race, with the streaming giant going into the night with a total of 24 nominations. And yet, in the end Netflix won only two — Marriage Story’s Laura Dern took home Best Supporting Actress and American Factory nabbed Best Documentary — with its most heavily promoted contender, Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, completely shut out. So why was this Parasite’s year and why did Netflix come up short?

“In the end you cannot buy an Oscar nomination and when you try the Academy tends to resent it,” Richard Rushfield, veteran entertainment journalist and writer of The Ankler newsletter told IGN. “It’s been, for a long time now, when you have these films that ‘the establishment’ sort of declares in unison, ‘this has to win, you have to give this all the prizes,’ that the membership says, ‘Well, no we don’t.’ And [The Irishman] just has this force of not only [a 96%] Rotten Tomatoes score, but the biggest budget ever put behind a awards campaign for it, and this platinum-coated team … It just felt like this giant behemoth being forced down on people. And I don’t think the Academy members like it, and it’s not a good story to tell [as an institution].”

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And few “good stories” about a Best Picture winner are more appealing to Oscar voters than that of the underdog film, which Parasite certainly was heading into the 92nd Academy Awards. “Parasite’s win came after a combination of momentum, word-of-mouth, and sheer fandom. It was always a film celebrated for how different it was, and how risky it was in the way it balanced all of these different tones,” said Erik Davis, managing editor of Fandango. “Make no mistake, this film winning Best Picture was one of the great moments in Oscar history. It’s a moment long overdue and one audiences have been waiting for. It’s the kind of win that tells the rest of the world that any film, big or small, from America or abroad, can win Best Picture. That’s an important message to send to the next generation of filmmakers: you can make it here, too.”

That’s a sentiment echoed by Rushfield: “In the end it’s always about the film. It was having a movie that people really liked that sort of snuck up by surprise on people because it wasn’t this goliath like The Irishman, that demanded that everybody fall in line behind it.”

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IndieWire Editor-at-Large Anne Thompson suggested that the biggest obstacle against Netflix was the streamer’s own end game – which was to draw more subscribers to the streaming service. Despite opening their films “really effectively” and winning rave reviews on the film festival scene, Thompson believes “they wanted to use all of that attention to drive more people to watch the films on Netflix. That is their goal, and all of this Oscar attention achieved that goal whether they win or not. I would argue that if they were in movie theaters, which is, by the way, not their business trying to make these films into box office successes, they could have held onto more momentum all the way across the finish line.”

It’s also possible The Irishman lost the old-fashioned way: something better came along to vote for. “Parasite and 1917 are what happened to The Irishman,” said Davis of the incredibly competitive awards season that saw the frontrunner constantly changing. “Both films debuted in theaters to wide acclaim after momentum for Scorsese’s film had evened out. Perhaps a late surge by those two films are what put a damper in Irishman’s chances in the long run.”

Here’s why IGN named Parasite the best movie of 2019:

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Thompson said she had observed the goodwill on the part of Academy members towards Parasite building over awards season, especially when director Bong Joon-ho and his cast spent time in Hollywood campaigning for the film and winning Oscar voters over on a personal basis. “It was like Moonlight, he way that they wanted to root for this movie. The way they cared about it, were invested in it,” Thompson said, adding that her fellow Oscar ceremony attendees went wild every time the film won.

For more on the 92nd Academy Awards, check out the complete winners list, learn why Joker was never going to win Best Picture, and discover who Parasite director Bong Joon-ho is tied with for Oscars wins in a single ceremony.

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Fluance Ai40 Powered Bookshelf Speakers Review

Gamers sometimes benefit from a lucky sort of overlap in the audio business. It turns out that speakers which have traditionally been used by audiophiles as studio monitors or bookshelf speakers are often sized (and priced) right for PCs and gamers as well. Sometimes this is intentional, sometimes it’s not.

In the case of the Fluance Ai40 Powered Bookshelf Speakers, I’m going to guess not; these are primarily designed as powered Bluetooth bookshelf speakers with an auxiliary audio input, and while Fluance won’t drive to your house and prevent you from using them as computer speakers, they seem aimed at music fans looking to step up to higher quality audio without spending a fortune. Even so, the temptation was too great to avoid trying: How well do they perform as PC gaming speakers?

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Fluance Ai40 – Design and Features

The Ai40 sits at the lower end of the two self-powered bookshelf speakers in Fluance’s product line. While big-brother Ai60 packs a 100-watt integrated amp and a 6.5-inch driver, the Ai40 downsizes things a little to come in under the $200 price point. Under the hood, you’ll find a 70-watt amp (35 watts for each channel) driving a one-inch silk soft dome tweeter and a five-inch woven glass fiber driver.

The speakers use an acoustic suspension design, housed in completely sealed, port-free cabinets made from medium density fiberboard (MDF). Fiberboard is a bit cheaper than true hardwood, but it’s commonly used in bookshelf speakers. In my experience, you’d be hard-pressed to hear a difference, so it’s a reasonable compromise to make the package more affordable.

Visually, these speakers are stunningly elegant. I’ve become numb to the all-black aesthetic that virtually every audio product seems to have these days. Breaking that mold, the “lucky bamboo” model that Fluance shipped me has a gorgeous bamboo finish on the sides and a white face, nicely contrasting the black cones. My favorite part is that there’s no black fabric grill to interrupt the contrasty front – this may be a matter of personal taste, but I love the bare look of the speakers. If you are dead inside, you can choose from the two other finishes: walnut or black, both of which feature a black front.

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The right speaker is the active one, equipped with the amp and controls. Tucked away in the lower right corner you’ll find just a single detented volume knob, which you push to toggle between the two inputs. A small status light communicates a half-dozen things depending on its color and whether it’s steady or flashing. That sounds like a lot to keep track of, but honestly, it takes all of about 10 minutes to get comfortable with what the speaker is trying to tell you. Blue means it’s in Bluetooth mode; yellow is the auxiliary input. Flashing blue means it’s pairing, while flashing red means it’s muted. There are a few others, but you get the idea. The right speaker also has an infrared sensor for the remote control, positioned in the lower left so it’s symmetric to the volume knob.

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The other cabinet has just a bare face exposing the two cones. Around back, each cabinet has its own pair of gold-plated binding posts for connecting the speakers to each other, while the right speaker also has a power port, auxiliary input, and Bluetooth pairing button.

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Depending upon where you plan to put these speakers into service, they might seem a little large. Measuring 6.5 x 8 x 11-inches, they’ll be right at home on a shelf or beside a television. But they’re conspicuously large on a computer desktop.

Fluance also includes an infrared remote that does it all – power and mute, source switching, status light brightness, and bass and treble control. A 5-position control wheel handles volume, track skip/back, and play/pause (though obviously, the wheel is most useful in Bluetooth mode; only the volume control does anything when the source is set to your PC).

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Fluance Ai40 – Music and Gaming

Audio gear can sometimes be challenging to set up, but the Ai40 is barely harder to configure than a single Bluetooth speaker. The package comes with eight feet of speaker wire that you thread through the binding posts to connect the two speakers. I had zero trouble connecting the speakers to my iPhone for Bluetooth audio, and after playing with that for a while, I connected the auxiliary input to my PC’s audio output using the included Y-cable.

If you don’t plan to connect your phone to the speakers, you may not even need to mess with the audio cable – just connect the speakers to your PC via Bluetooth. Frankly that’s not the worst idea in the world, since I guarantee you that the three-foot audio cable included in the box is not going to be long enough, especially if your PC is on the left side of your desk. I had to substitute a longer cable to get up and running.

But then there’s the buzz. When I first started using the Ai40 while set to the auxiliary input, I heard a whiny buzz that’s loud enough you might wonder how this product ever got through quality assurance (this doesn’t happen in Bluetooth mode or when the speakers are muted). It fades into the background when audio is playing, but it’s annoying when nothing is playing, especially if you’re close to them, such as if you position them on a computer desk.

I quickly realized that the buzz scales with the speaker’s volume dial, and I had the speakers pretty well cranked. The obvious workaround was to ensure the volume in Windows was relatively high so I could minimize the speaker volume, at which point the buzz all but disappeared. That’s a generally good strategy for ensuring good audio quality anyway, but you shouldn’t have to watch your volume level this closely to avoid getting line noise (or whatever was causing the buzz).

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Even so, when I started listening to music, I could very nearly forgive Fluance for that glitch, because these are some mighty fine speakers. I ran them through a handful of my favorite songs and no matter what I threw at them, they were a joy to listen to. The acoustic suspension design clearly eliminates the unpleasant boominess you sometimes get from ported speakers, and even a bass-heavy song like Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love sounded tight, with a well-articulated low end that was punchy but controlled. Likewise, Quest for Fire’s The Greatest Hits by God has a wide aural range, from a throbbing kick drum to delicate strings and vocals, and these speakers did the song proud. This might sound a little crazy, but I didn’t miss a subwoofer at all when running these speakers through their paces.

And the lack of subwoofer certainly didn’t impede gameplay, either. Both Call of Duty: Black Ops and Wolfenstein II were a pleasure. Both delivered precise and visceral sound effects including throaty gunfire, a respectable low end rounding out explosions, and clear and distinct dialog. The same could be said for all the games I played, but I was particularly impressed with the way the Ai40 reproduced soundtracks. I fired up an old favorite – Homeworld Remastered – and found the Ai40 elevated the atmospheric background sounds and heavenly choruses.

As I mentioned earlier, the remote control has bass and treble controls, which I experimented with extensively in games and music. Both feature a range of ten positions – five above neutral and five below. I found that games like Wolfenstein and Call of Duty benefitted from pushing the bass close to the max, but more than even a single notch of bass made music a little too boomy for my tastes. Unfortunately, this is where you run into the Ai40’s biggest usability issue: There’s no way to know where you are in that audio EQ space except by cranking the bass or treble all the way up or down (at which point the status light on the right speaker flashes at you), and then counting your clicks back to the middle or wherever you want to be.

Purchasing Guide

Fluance Ai40 powered bookshelf speakers are available for $199 on Amazon or direct from Fluance.

Fallout 2 And Planescape Torment Veteran Joins Australian Post-Apocalypse RPG, Broken Roads

The studio behind Broken Roads, an upcoming isometric role-playing game set in a ravaged future Australia, today announced that longtime tabletop and computer RPG designer Colin McComb will be joining the project as its creative lead. McComb was formerly a part of Black Isle Studios, working on Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment, and more recently a writer on Wasteland 2, Wasteland 3, and the creative lead for Torment: Tides of Numenera.

Broken Roads models itself on classic RPGs like the ones McComb is known for, and leans heavily on using Australian settings, iconography, and language. It has an emphasis on exploration, dialogue trees, and turn-based party combat, but its most distinguishing feature its morality system, which distinguishes actions based on four unique philosophical categories: utilitarian, existentialist, nihilist, and Machiavellian. An early demo of the game was one of the best games we played at PAX Aus 2019.

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In speaking to GameSpot about the appointment, game director Craig Ritchie said that the studio, Drop Bear Bytes, had been looking for an experienced designer to help bolster their newly-formed team. “The high concept work in Tides of Numenera and the depths to which certain themes were explored really stood out to me, and (Colin) felt like a great talent to try to get on the team.”

“I contacted Colin and we got talking, simply by reaching out over Twitter. It felt like a long shot, but I sent him the link to our reveal trailer, we started discussing the game in general and the possibility of him being involved,” Ritchie said. McComb said that he and Richie “fell almost instantly into discussing our philosophical influences and it spiralled from there. Next thing you know, I’m signing an NDA and helping him amend his company’s drug and alcohol policy.”

When asked about his thoughts about Broken Road’s unique take on RPG morality systems, McComb said: “It’s always going to be difficult to capture the depth and breadth of human thought, but what I’ve seen of the early design, Broken Roads is going to have a thoughtful and reactive system that will allow players to chart a mental journey that gives them the freedom to explore new avenues of thought without constraining them to a specific path or punishing them for their choices. I look forward to long arguments about the nature of reality, perception, and the common good, and then tying all those things to fast-paced yet thoughtful gameplay.”

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McComb and Ritchie also spoke about the recent resurgence of isometric CRPGs, which are paving the way for projects like Broken Roads to exist. “Between 2019’s successes and the games coming out in the next few years, it feels like it’s a golden age (for CRPGs)–I don’t know if I can remember a time when we’ve had such an embarrassment of riches all at once. It’s exciting and gratifying to see,” said McComb. “Pillars of Eternity and Shadowrun Returns really opened things up again both for CRPG developers and for the fans”, Ritchie added. “Just look at what InXile, Larian and Owlcat Games are up to at the moment. CRPGs may be niche, but they’re strong… It’s an interesting full circle, having titles like Fallout 2 and of course Planescape: Torment being such big influences on Broken Roads, and now having Colin on the team.”

Broken Roads is currently slated for a 2021 release. The team at Drop Bear Bytes also recently hired narrative designer Alexander Swords as their lead writer. Swords’ recent projects include work on Ubisoft’s game based on James Cameron’s Avatar.

Xbox Series X: Microsoft Has “Bold” Ideas To Compete With PS5

Part of the reason why Microsoft revealed the Xbox Series X in December during The Game Awards was because Xbox lost considerable ground to Sony in the current console generation, and the company wanted to start doing things differently to win back its market position for next-gen. Xbox boss Phil Spencer spoke about Microsoft’s plans recently, saying he was originally hesitant about revealing the Xbox Series X so early. However, thanks to a persistent marketing boss, he came around to the idea.

Looking ahead, Spencer said on the Gamertag Radio podcast that you can expect Microsoft to launch “bold” strategies to promote the Xbox Series X as it attempts to win back marketshare from PlayStation.

“We made the decision … the decision was actually really pushed forward by one of our marketing leads, and she’s awesome, and she just stood up in a room and she said, ‘We should go do something bold. Something we’ve never done before,'” Spencer said about the Xbox Series X reveal.

“Let’s face it, we’re not in the market position we wanted to be in this last generation. I don’t think we’re going to get to disrupt and grow our business just doing what we’ve always done. Let’s go try to do new things,” he added. “And when she first brought the idea to me … honestly, I wasn’t the biggest fan. I was like, ‘Well, there’s going to be a lot of other games there…'”

Spencer said he has been impressed by The Game Awards creator Geoff Keighley’s strategy and vision that has spawned a can’t-miss event that draws millions of viewers each year. As such, Spencer came around to the idea of announcing the Xbox Series X during someone else’s event. Historically, Microsoft has announced new consoles during its own news briefings so it can control the messaging more directly.

In addition to the Xbox Series X, Microsoft announced Hellblade 2 during The Game Awards. The trailers for the game and the console “played well,” Spencer said. Now that he’s had some time to look back and reflect, Spencer said he’s happy with how things played out, but it wasn’t always a sure thing.

“It was cool to do it,” he said. “And the response has been great. But to be completely honest with you, I could be sitting here today and it could have been a disaster.”

Looking ahead to the Xbox Series X, Microsoft is no doubt planning numerous campaigns to promote the console ahead of its release this holiday. Spencer didn’t share any specifics, but he teased that Microsoft is aiming to “think about things in a different way” with regards to its marketing and promotion of the console.

“I like trying something bold. I’m really happy with the way it played out and the response from the fans,” he said of the Xbox Series X reveal during The Game Awards. “But every decision we make between now and launch, we’re trying to think about things in a different way. Some of them we’ll get right. Some of them we won’t. But we’re definitely not going to be meek. We’re going to bold in what we’re trying to go do.”

Microsoft has yet to share many of the key specifics around the Xbox Series X like its release date, price, and launch title lineup. Halo Infinite is a launch title, but it remains to be seen what other new games may be available on day one. As announced previously, the Xbox Series X will play Xbox One games, as well as Xbox 360 and Original Xbox games. Spencer recently spoke about how “tons” of backwards compatibility games are always playable on Xbox Series X.

The Xbox Series X may be just one of Microsoft’s next-generation consoles. “Series X” is the model name of the next-generation console platform, which is known simply called “Xbox.”

Microsoft will return to E3 2020 in June, and both the Xbox Series X and Halo Infinite are projected to feature in the event in a big way. Sony, which has its own next-generation console coming this year with the PS5, won’t attend E3 2020.

Ryan Reynolds’ Clue Movie Reboot Enlisting Muppets Director

Like Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick, Ryan Reynolds is looking to make a killing with a reboot of Clue–the movie based on the murder mystery board game. Now, after losing Jason Bateman as a potential director, the film is reportedly in talks with someone new to helm the project.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Bobin, best known as the director of The Muppets and Muppets Most Wanted films, is in talks to join the movie. Bobin is also the co-creator of Flight of the Conchords, alongside Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, as well as the director of 2019’s criminally underrated Dora and the Lost City of Gold.

Per THR, Bateman was originally signed on to direct and star in the movie, alongside Reynolds. Now he’ll do neither. According to Variety, that’s due to scheduling conflicts with Ozark, the Netflix series on which Bateman stars and executive produces. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the writers behind the Deadpool and Zombieland franchises, are still working on the Clue script.

Little else is known about Clue at this point. Neither a cast nor a release date have been announced. The original film, released in 1985, was a satirical take on the board game starring, among others, Christopher Lloyd, Madeline Kahn, Tim Curry, and Eileen Brenneman. Much like the game itself, the film has more than one potential outcome. There were three different endings that varied, depending on which theater you saw the movie in. While it flopped at the box office, the original Clue has gone on to become a cult classic.

Reynolds will next be seen in Free Guy, a movie set in an open-world video game, where the actor plays a non-player character that suddenly becomes self-aware thanks to a new piece of code. That films hits theaters on July 3.